


put me back together (though it may not hold)

by Anonymous



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prompt Fill, Protectiveness, annie loves her boys, protective abed nadir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "The study group is a family, but it sometimes feels like the three of them are their own little sub-family. They’re closer to each other than the rest of the group, have been from the start, and yet sometimes Abed is still a mystery that, try as they might, Troy and Annie combined can’t seem to crack."in which Abed, Annie, and Troy are the only ones that can hold each other to the ground.
Relationships: Abed Nadir & Jeff Winger, Annie Edison & Abed Nadir, Annie Edison & Jeff Winger, Troy Barnes & Annie Edison, Troy Barnes & Annie Edison & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes & Jeff Winger, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 16
Kudos: 217
Collections: Anonymous





	put me back together (though it may not hold)

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous said: “...If you are ever up to it I would love to see you write a protective Abed. Like I feel like we see Troy be the more protective of the two. but I think Abed could be a whole swat team if he wanted.”
> 
> i'm not super happy with how i fulfilled this prompt, but i like the fic, so maybe i'll just revisit it in the future. idk. i'm not great at writing conflict, lol.
> 
> takes place probably during s3/s4? it's deeply unimportant, honestly.
> 
> cw for homophobic slur use

Troy’s eyes scan the student lounge, searching for a familiar blank face. Really, he would be happy to see any of his friends, but Abed is (as always) his first choice.

He spots both him and Annie sitting on a sofa and chatting quietly. Abed is facing away from him, so Annie spots him first, smiling and waving him over as Abed turns to see what she’s looking at and smiles as well. He makes his way over and Annie wordlessly slides over so he can sit down next to Abed, who kisses his cheek in greeting. Annie barely attempts to suppress her grin as she watches them, and Troy's cheeks heat up under her gaze.

He opens his mouth to ask how the two of them are when a guy in an armchair opposite the sofa snorts.

“Fags.”

Abed’s brow creases, and Annie opens her mouth to retort, but Troy places a hand on her arm and she glances at him before closing it and frowning.

“Can I borrow some of your notes?” he asks Annie, mostly in an attempt to distract her, because there’s a reasonable chance she’s going to say something to the guy and there’s really just no point. He’s honestly just glad Britta isn’t there.

It almost works, because her face shifts and she nods, reaching into her bag.

“Yeah, of course, what do you-”

The guy coughs and says it again, only louder “Fags.”

“I’m sorry,” says Annie, voice mutinous as she turns to look at the guy “is there a problem?”

“Not with you,” he croons, looking her up and down before adding “angel” with a wink that makes Troy's skin crawl.

Annie stands up, and Troy decides that as pissed off as he is, he has no interest in her ending up in trouble over this idiot. He grabs her bag from when she had set it on the ground as he stands, swinging it on to his shoulder, and takes her by the arm. Abed stands as well, face still forming the slightest of frowns.

“Okay, alright, let’s get going,” Troy says, as he pulls Annie along behind him and Abed. but, because nothing is ever easy, the guy stands when they walk past him on their way out.

“That’s right. Run along.”

Abed stops, turning to face the guy. Troy does the same, and Annie is still subtly trying to wiggle out of his hold (to no avail).

“Abed, c’mon,” he says, but Abed is holding up a finger like he does when he’s deep in thought, and then he turns to Troy and grabs both sides of his face so he can kiss him deeply right there in the middle of the student lounge.

Because he’s embarrassingly whipped, Abed's mouth on his distracts him enough that his grip on Annie loosens. It doesn’t even occur to him until he hears her start to yell, and begrudgingly cuts the kiss off.

“Can you hold this?” he asks Abed with a sigh, who nods as Troy hands him Annie's bag. He walks over to Annie, who is still shouting at the guy in the middle of the student lounge, and lifts her over his shoulder.

“Troy! Put me down!” she shouts as he rejoins Abed, and the three of them leave the lounge. He ignores her loud protests, and they attract several questioning glances from students in the hall. when they’re halfway to the library, he decides that it’s probably far enough that she won’t walk back. He sets her down, and she glares at him as she smooths out her cardigan and Abed quietly hands her her bag.

“You can’t just do that!” she says, smacking his shoulder.

“I know,” he says “I’m sorry, I know you were trying to help, but there’s honestly no point with those kinds of people. I didn’t want you to do something you’d regret.”

Annie looks slightly guilty, and mumbles “you’re lucky I'm not wearing a skirt.”

Troy smiles, throwing one arm around her and the other around Abed as they walk to the library together.

**\---**

A week or so passes, and the incident is nearly forgotten. They haven’t seen the guy around, and nobody has brought it up.

Abed tells Annie and Troy that he has something he needs to deal with and to head home without him.

“Everything alright?” Troy asks.

Abed nods. “Yeah. I told my professor I would help him out with something.”

Troy and Annie share a look, but Annie shrugs, and Troy decides that if she’s not worried, he probably doesn’t need to be.

“Okay. see you at home.”

Abed kisses Troy and allows Annie to peck his cheek, and immediately walks off. Troy and Annie watch him go, and Troy can’t shake the feeling that he’s not telling them something.

Later, Abed still isn’t home. Troy and Annie are seated beside each other at the table, only half paying attention to the studying they had sat down to do.

“When do you think he’ll be back?” Annie asks him.

“Dunno. He would probably call if it was gonna be late, right?”

“Right,” Annie confirms, though she sounds just as unsure as Troy does.

The study group is a family, but it sometimes feels like the three of them are their own little sub-family. They’re closer to each other than the rest of the group, have been from the start, and yet sometimes Abed is still a mystery that, try as they might, Troy and Annie _combined_ can’t seem to crack.

They’re just about to go back to their textbooks when they hear a key in the lock. They turn, and in walks Jeff, supporting a barely-conscious Abed, blood dripping down from his nose, and a sizable cut on his left eyebrow.

“Holy shit,” Annie, who Troy has heard curse maybe four times in his life, hisses as they rush over to him.

“Hey,” Jeff says, quietly.

“Jeff, what the fuck?” says Annie, nearing hysterics

Troy feels like his chest is caving in as he stares at the freshly blooming bruises spattering Abed's skin.

“He should probably lie down,” Jeff says.

Troy moves to support most of Abed’s weight, and the two of them end up lowering him onto the mattress Troy and Abed sleep on (after getting together, they decided sleeping together in one bunk of a set of bunk beds was impractical, but could only afford a bigger mattress, no frame). 

Annie watches, arms crossed and teeth worrying her bottom lip. She and Jeff step out as she mumbles something about getting him a glass of water, while Troy adjusts the comforter around a mostly sleeping Abed. He pushes his hand through his soft hair, presses a soft kiss to his temple, and emerges to Annie and Jeff talking lowly in the kitchen, Annie sitting on the counter across from where Jeff stands.

“He fucking texted me, told me he needed my help in the parking lot near the pool,” Jeff explains, as Troy goes to stand next to Annie. She finds his hand, and laces it with hers, a quiet symbol of platonic love that they used to pretend was only for Annie's sake.

Troy’s past that, by now, and clings to her with everything he has.

Even Jeff sounds somewhat frazzled as he speaks, which is never a good sign. “I asked him what he needed help with and he didn’t answer me, which is never a good sign. I got there and he was on the ground with some guy that ran off when I got close and yelled.”

Troy’s stomach drops, and Annie looks livid. Her grip on his hand increases to a bone-crushing strength, but he doesn’t mind. He uses it to ground himself.

“That guy from the lounge the other day probably jumped him when he was coming back from his professor’s.” says Annie, hollowly, and Troy is already devising murder plots, sure she’s doing the same “that’s why he texted you, he probably knew the guy was following him”

“dude had met his match, though,” says Jeff, and Annie and Troy are broken away from their silent plotting “you know that saying about how you should ‘see the other guy?’ Yeah, I did. Wasn’t pretty.”

They consider this.

Troy pulls a glass from the cupboard, and fills it with water, and moves out of the kitchen.

“I’m gonna go and-”

“Yeah, go,” says Annie, nodding at him.

He sets the glass of water beside the mattress for when Abed wakes up, and sits down just near where he lies, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

The gash on his eyebrow is definitely going to need a lot of cleaning, and the blood below his nose should be cleaned as well, but (as far as Troy can tell, at least) it doesn’t look like he’s going to need stitches or anything.

One of his hands rests on the mattress, palm facing up, Troy takes it in both of his and runs his thumb over the heel of it.

Abed stirs, and Troy is worried he’s woken him, but he just turns over onto his side, facing Troy, face still neutral (normal neutral, not Abed neutral. They’re very different. He had spent twenty minutes trying to explain it to Britta one day, who had just thrown her arms in the air and walked away after a certain point).

“Jeff went home”

Annie says it softly, but he hadn’t noticed her hovering in the doorway, and he jumps. If she notices, she doesn't mention it.

“I told him to,” she continues, “he clearly wanted to, and there wasn’t really any reason for him to stay.”

Troy nods. She flicks her head in the direction of the kitchen.

“C’mon, let’s eat.”

“Abed-”

“Can’t eat while he’s asleep. We’ll make him buttered noodles when he gets up.”

Troy nods again, and they silently walk to the kitchen. It’s clear neither of them is in the mood to cook, so they end up back at the table with bowls of stale off-brand cereal, schoolwork discarded.

They eat quietly, and Troy clears the table when they’re done while Annie puts the kettle on. She pulls out a mug for herself and is putting a teabag in it when Troy wordlessly pulls a second one from the cupboard and sets it down next to hers. She hardly reacts, just drops a sachet into the second mug and puts the box away, and Troy loves her so much sometimes that he could die.

He loads up his mug with milk and sugar, and when they sit back down at the table Annie watches him drink it with clear disgust as she sips her black tea. The moment passes quickly, though, and soon they’re both left with nothing but their own thoughts and the gentle hum of the neighbourhood coming through the open window.

“Troy...” Annie says, after a bit “what are we gonna do?”

And the inflection in her voice, the fear for her best friends, the worry for a beaten and bruised Abed in the next room, it hits Troy square in the chest. Her question beats him over the head with the fact he’s been ignoring since Jeff brought Abed through the apartment door just a few hours earlier.

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, obviously we have to talk to the dean. But I don’t know if we can prove that it was the guy from the other day-”

“Like the dean would care. Besides the fact that this is something that isn’t exactly gonna be great for the progressive image he’s trying to give Greendale, it’s _us_. We tell him someone jumped Abed because he’s gay, and he’s gonna-”

“I wasn’t jumped.”

Annie and Troy turn in alarm to see Abed, clearly having just woken up.

“What?” says Troy

“You said I got jumped. I didn’t.”

“Abed, Jeff saw that guy attacking you,” asks Annie

“He wasn’t attacking me,” Abed says, moving to sit at the table between the two of them “I mean, maybe he technically was, but it was mutual. It was a fight.”

“ _A fight?_ ” Annie and Troy ask in unison, and Abed nods.

“Who were you fighting?” asks Troy.

“Mike.”

Annie and Troy share a look.

“Mike who?” asks Annie.

“I don’t know his last name,” says Abed. There’s a moment of silence before he seems to pick up on their confusion.

“The guy from the lounge on Tuesday.”

Troy’s stomach sinks.

“Abed, what the hell? You started a fight with him _intentionally_?”

Abed nods, and then frowns at the looks on Troy and Annie’s faces.

“You’re upset.”

“Abed, you could have been seriously hurt,” Annie says “you should have at least told someone about it.”

“I did. I told Jeff.”

“And then didn’t wait for him to show up.”

“I didn’t need to. I mostly just wanted him there as a ride home.”

Troy and Annie stare at each other, not knowing what to say. Abed stands from the table.

“I’m going to go clean up.”

A moment passes, and Annie just shakes her head as she wordlessly takes Troy's mug into the kitchen. She doesn’t return, and Troy wanders absently to the bathroom, where he finds Abed sorting through the cabinet under the sink. He procures a first aid kit, and notices Troy when he emerges.

“I really am alright,” he says.

Troy just shakes his head and takes the pouch Annie had filled with supplies after she moved in from Abed's hands. He gestures to the counter of the sink, and Abed blinks at him for a moment before understanding what he’s implying and sits on the cool surface.

It’s quiet, for a moment, as Troy soaks a cotton pad in antiseptic, and gently wipes away the blood that’s dried below Abed's nose.

“Why did you do it?” he asks, quietly.

Abed shrugs.

“I feel sort of useless sometimes. I know what I’m good at, I'm not saying that I have no value, but those things aren’t really helpful in the real world,” he says quietly. Troy pulls back to look at him, but Abed's eyes are focused on the floor “I wanted to serve a purpose beyond movie quotes and blunt observations.”

Troy shakes his head and wipes away the last bit of blood above Abed’s lip before dropping the used pad into the wastebasket.

“Sometimes, you’re kind of an idiot.”

Abed’s eyes focus on him, now, as he douses a second cotton pad in the acrid liquid. He thinks that Abed expects him to explain further, he sort of expects _himself_ to explain further. But he just cleans the gash along Abed’s eyebrow, determines that it probably doesn’t even need a bandaid, and throws away the bloodied cotton. He rinses his hands, replaces the antiseptic in the kit and puts it back under the sink, and takes one of Abed’s hands in his.

“I love you,” he says quietly “and I’m glad you’re okay.”

He doesn’t expect to hear the words back. He says them constantly, and Abed rarely reciprocates verbally, instead choosing to show what he feels instead of using words.

(“I don’t like how it sounds,” Abed had told him once, in the light of the early morning “it doesn’t feel like enough to just say it.”)

But Abed speaks, now, squeezing the hand holding his.

“I love you too.”

Troy leans into Abed’s space, working his jaw against Abed's, who winds his free arm around the back of Troy’s neck and spreads his legs so Troy can move fully in between them. Troy rests a hand on Abed’s hip, and Abed sighs into his mouth as he pushes it under the hem of the soft cotton of his t-shirt.

“You would think that between the two of you, someone would have learned how to close a door,” says Annie from behind them “since you’re clearly done with the first aid, can you _please_ let me use the bathroom?”

They break apart, sufficiently embarrassed, and she rolls her eyes at them fondly when she steps aside so they can walk past her, troy shooting her a sheepish grin.

They’re lying in bed that night, Troy's head tucked under Abed's neck and resting against his chest, Abed's arm around his waist. It’s dark, but he can tell by Abed’s breathing that he isn’t asleep.

“What you said earlier,” Troy says, quietly, voice slightly muffled by the soft material of Abed's shirt “about being useless. You know that you’re not, right?”

“No, I know,” says Abed, quietly “I just wish I was _more_ useful”

Troy shuffles upwards so that he’s looking directly at Abed. They usually leave a lamp on in the main room, paranoia that lingers with Annie after her time in her last apartment, so there’s a soft stream of yellow light filtering in and casting gentle shadows across Abed’s face. He reaches a hand out and swipes his thumb across Abed’s bottom lip before he leans in and kisses him, softly, gently. He pulls back, and rests the hand at the base of his neck.

“Listen to me, okay?” he says, quietly “I don’t _need_ you to be more useful. I love you the way you are. Whether or not you go out and fight some douche isn’t going to change that.”

“I know that.” says Abed “I just-” he huffs frustratedly, and Troy can’t help but kiss him again.

“I love you,” Troy says, and Abed just nods, eyes focused on some faraway spot.

There’s another moment of silence, before,

“It’s kind of hot that you went and fought that guy, though,” Troy says, quietly, fingers absently tracing a patch of exposed skin on Abed's collarbone. Abed’s eyes snap up to his “it was stupid, and I’m still kind of mad at you. But Jeff said he got it way worse than you did, so...”

Abed’s grinning ever so slightly, and leans in to close the gap between them.

This isn’t over, Troy knows that. There are going to be repercussions that the dean’s fixation with their study group won’t be able to help them with.

But that’s a later problem.


End file.
